DON'T TELL ME IT'S NOT HALLOWED GROUND

This past weekend, America remembered 9-11. There was a miriad of emotion - intense sadness, pride for our first responders, joy for our country, undaunted in the face of terror, and nine years ago today, comforted by our strong leader, commander-in-chief President Bush at Ground Zero. Just as December 7th is remembered as "a day that will live in infamy", so will 9-11.

Along with the ashes of thousands of innocent people, Ground Zero is covered with the blood, sweat and tears of all those who put the pieces back together again, and all those who wept.

Just like the Arizona in Pearl Harbor, this is hallowed ground and should be respected as such. The landing gear of those planes fell on the roof of the Burlington Coat Factory building, and no question how involved this building is in the terrorist attacks of radical Islam.

There is so much to remember about that day, which is a good thing, and Keith Hennessey has a piece today - the day President Bush went to Ground Zero, 9 years ago - sharing some moving moments, that moved my soul.  Don't tell me this is not hallowed ground:

“I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you!”
by Keith Hennessey - September 14, 2010

Nine years ago today President Bush visited Ground Zero in New York City. One lasting image is of the President, standing on a pile of rubble with his hand on the shoulder of a firefighter named Bob Beckwith, talking to the rescue workers with a bullhorn.

Over the weekend I realized I know most of the people who were with the President at that moment.

Eric Draper was the President’s chief White House photographer for all eight years. He led an incredible team of photographers who captured key moments in the Presidency. Eric is a phenomenal photographer, a good man, and I am proud to have worked with him.

I’d like to share Eric’s photo and comments from Eric and others who were on the scene when it was taken.

You can click on the photo for a higher resolution version.

From left to right:

• (partial white shirt) unnamed NYPD;
• (black helmet, in back) unnamed rescue worker;
• (white helmet on head and in hands) Assistant NYFD Chief ?
• (light blue helmet) Al Concordia, Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Presidential Protection Division, US Secret Service;
• President Bush;
• retired firefighter Bob Beckwith;
• (blue coat) Carl Truscott, Special Agent in Charge, Presidential Protection Division, US Secret Service; and
• Governor George Pataki.

(I would greatly appreciate help in identifying those whose names I don’t know.)

Eric Draper, White House Photographer:

I remember standing at the site which still smoldered from the terrorist attack three days earlier. President Bush had just finished touring Ground Zero and embracing and talking with hundreds of firefighters. As the White House Photographer, I focused on capturing the strong emotion there. I had to press my way through the crowd to stay with the President, who was being guided to a spot to speak. I was close enough to the President to touch his legs if I tried, so I had to use my widest camera lens. When he said, “I can hear you,” I knew it was going to be a powerful, historic moment. I watched my President lead the country through its shock and grief.

Eric reports that the photo was taken with a Nikon N90 camera, 17-35 zoom lens on Fujichrome 400 film. Shutter speed 500/2.8.

(My plug for Eric: Eric now runs his own photography business and I highly recommend him.)

Joe Hagin, Deputy Chief of Staff:

Most don’t realize it but he is actually standing on a crushed fire engine – the highest part of what was a huge fire pumper, reduced to about four or five feet high. The firefighter standing with him was actually a retired member of the department who grabbed his old helmet and headed to Ground Zero when he saw what had happened on TV.

Bob Beckwith, the firefighter standing with the President (in a Time magazine story five years ago):

I got home and I told my wife, ‘I’m going down,’ ” he said, referring to the smoldering remains of the Twin Towers.

At first, his family dissuaded him from going to Ground Zero, but after Beckwith discovered that one of his colleague’s sons was one of the hundreds of firefighters missing, he put on his old uniform, strapped on his helmet and went to join the rescue efforts.

Beckwith had to finagle his way into Ground Zero when he approached the heavily guarded perimeter.

“I said, ‘Come on, guys. You know I got to get in there.’ I showed them my identification card from the fire department and so a couple of guys let me through,” Beckwith said.

Once inside the perimeter, Beckwith got a firsthand look at the charred remains of the World Trade Center and immediately began working to find survivors.

…

“And the president came and he is shaking hands with all the ironworkers and all the cops and all the firemen that were down there … and I figure he’s going over to the microphones, but he makes a quick right, and he puts his arm up and I said, ‘Oh my God!’ “

After helping the president onto the truck, Beckwith begins to crawl down, but Bush stops him.

“He says, ‘Where are you going?’ I said, ‘Uh, I was told to get down.’ He said, ‘No, no, you stay right here.’ “

…

“Do you remember the TIME magazine where the president is holding up the flag? He wanted me to have that flag. I still have it,” Beckwith told CNN.

Logan Walters, personal aide to the President:

Driving to the event there was a real emotional tension, we all knew we were going to a place of epic tragedy in our Nation’s history but the reason for our visit was to provide strength and support to those who were there, and the Americans who would be watching on television. Not a lot of conversation, and because the event had little planning there was little to discuss on the way. We knew there would be unscripted moments that would be seen around the world. The wreckage on the site was terrible, there were several places where smoke was still rising from the ruins of the towers. Beams, wires, concrete and other skeletal remains were visible among the ash. Although many families and friends were still hopeful of finding loved ones, it was apparent upon seeing what was left of the towers that it would take no less than God’s hand to pull a survivor from what was left there. It was a heartbreaking sight. None of us at the White House had slept much since the attack, but we had showered and grabbed a meal or two and some rest. It seemed like no one at Ground Zero had stopped working since they were allowed into the site, and by talking to the people in charge we learned that was generally true. People were literally working to total exhaustion, multiple days without any real rest or food, and were still pushing themselves. No one wanted to give up. We talked to numerous emergency responders as the President walked the site. Most looked exhausted, had ash on their clothes and faces, and were emotionally drained. As the President talked to them, expressing gratitude, consoling some, and encouraging all, you could feel the strength and energy rising. He stepped up on the ruins of the fire engine, was handed the bullhorn, and began to speak. From the other side of Ground Zero, where a large number of the emergency responders had gathered, someone yelled “We can’t hear you!” The President’s response was from his heart, totally unscripted, and everyone felt he power of his words. The site literally erupted with cheers, it was incredible and energized and lifted those working at Ground Zero and those of us traveling with the President. In the end, all of us, I think the President included, left with a renewed energy and strength. Those men and women inspired all of us to work hard and do all that we could to support the President as he worked to protect our Nation. What we came to provide to them, they actually gave to us.

Karen Hughes, Counselor to the President:

I traveled to New York with President Bush on September 14, and will never forget the raw emotions, the incredible sadness, yet, in the end, the enduring inspiration of that day. Although I had seen the images on television, nothing could have prepared me for the moment when our motorcade turned the corner and we saw the still smoldering pile of twisted steel at Ground Zero — it was so horrifying that my hands instinctively covered my face. The rescue workers had been working non-stop for three days. They were exhausted, angry, full of emotion — and they wanted to hear from their President. We had not planned for him to speak, as earlier that day he had delivered a moving address at a national prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington. But we realized that the rescue workers at Ground Zero needed to hear from their President, and our terrific advance staffer, Nina Bishop, went to find a bullhorn. She had the President climb up on a ruined fire truck so people could see him and he kept fire fighter Bob Beckwith up with him — the crowd was shouting they couldn’t hear him — and when he turned and said, “I hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked down these buildings are going to hear from all of us soon,” it summed up the determination of our nation. The President’s remarks were a response to the rescue workers — totally unscripted, perfect for the situation, and standing there, I knew immediately this was an historic moment. I turned to my friend, Joe Allbaugh, the director of FEMA who had been Governor Bush’s chief of staff in Texas, and said, “That’s the person we know, and that’s going to be in his presidential library someday.” It was a day of incredible emotion and sadness — there was literally a hole in the heart of Manhattan — yet in the end, it became a day of inspiration as our motorcade left the city and thousands of New Yorkers lined the streets shouting “Thank you” to the volunteers and “God Bless America!”

Greg Jenkins, advance team:

I was shepherding the pool that day, having arrived with a small team from DC the night before, and was standing next to Draper when he took the photo. Nina Bishop — another advance person — was the one who is responsible for the bullhorn. As the President was shaking hands with first responders it became increasingly clear that he had to say something. Thinking fast, Nina found a bullhorn and when the President stood atop the rubble she simply handed it up to him and he did the rest. Completely unplanned. Totally authentic moment. But the untold story is how the video came to be.

When people recall the television imagery of the President making those remarks atop the rubble, what they don’t know is how that happened. Twice.

The press pool consisted of some print reporters, some still photographers, and one television crew (correspondent, producer and cameraman). Since we were in the middle of Ground Zero, the television camera wasn’t connected to an uplink truck, therefore it was not live. What we didn’t know was that another network some blocks away had a camera on top of a building pointed at Ground Zero. From their vantage point, and as far as they could zoom in, all they could make out was a small cluster of people at Ground Zero (that was us). The producer in our press pool was on his cell phone giving live color commentary to all the networks who were in the pool. The networks also had access to the live shot from the other network from the building some blocks away. When the producer said that the President was about to make some remarks, he held up his phone to get the President’s voice. The networks put the voice of the President broadcast from a cell phone over the live video from the other network, and voila!

The closeup video that we recall of the President’s remarks atop the rubble was actually broadcast later in the day when the pool cameraman was able to feed his closeup video.

I’d love to add to this post the recollections of any first responders on the scene when the President spoke, or any of those in the press pool mentioned by Greg..

Thanks once again to President George W. Bush for his leadership during this time of national tragedy and crisis.

And thank you to all those who worked so tirelessly at Ground Zero nine years ago.


Keith Hennessey served as the senior White House economic advisor to President George W. Bush. He is currently "doing a little bit of TV commentary", and writes his own blog at keithhennessey.com.

WE WILL NEVER FORGET 9-11-2001 - GOD BLESS

We will never forget, no matter who's in office.

KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED? NOT IN MY BACKYARD!

How many will stand and voice their opposition to this horrendous Obama/Holder decision to hold the terrorists trial in our criminal courts blocks from their attacks in New York City? Since both Holder and Obama have assured us the terrorists will be found guilty, why hold a trial at all? Answer: so they can put President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney on trial.

Rather than hold the trial in a military tribunal where it belongs as acts of war, this administration has chosen to risk the safety of our country and New York City for pure revenge, giving these terrorists a platform to spew their vile hatred for America. The cost of doing this is another story, and one that America cannot afford, especially when it is not necessary.

Amanda Bowman writes an excellent piece in PajamasMedia:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? Not In My Backyard!
For those who lost loved ones on 9/11, and for the safety of our city, New Yorkers must speak out against the decision to try KSM in the Big Apple.
by Amanda Bowman, November 29, 2009

The week after domestic terrorist Nidal Hassan went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood, Attorney General Eric Holder announced his decision to send five 9/11 terrorists to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court.

The Fort Hood massacre was the most serious act of domestic terror since 9/11. Why give the similarly inspired the incentive to make the pilgrimage to New York and act on their rage? This well-meaning but misguided decision by the Obama administration could hold deadly consequences for New York.

Holder has vigorously defended his decision and argues that to try these terrorists in a civilian court is the “right” thing. Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow terrorists yards away from Ground Zero might provide a civics lesson for the world, but it displays a reckless disregard for common sense, with no discernible benefit and the risk of grievous harm.

Let me be clear about something: I am confident that the U.S. attorney and his team of prosecutors will do a spectacular job of upholding the high standards of the Justice Department, and they will get these guys convicted. But getting them convicted is not the sole measure of success. The key issue here is our national security — more specifically, the security of all New Yorkers.

If we are at war, as the attorney general affirmed this week, we have to treat it like a war. War criminals are not tried in civilian courts. The 9/11 conspirators were originally charged by a military commission, a congressionally approved system which is a safe and fair means of trying enemy war criminals, be they members of traditional militaries or non-state terrorists. To move these terrorists into the civilian justice system is to give them legal rope that they intend to hang us with.

The discovery process required by a civilian trial could compromise the critical intelligence we have gained since 9/11. Andrew McCarthy, former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York recently explained that in a military trial, only lawyers with the right security clearances have access to intelligence secrets. But the rules are different in a civilian trial, where the terrorists can use their constitutional “right” to act as their own counsel and demand to see the legal discovery. We would be forced to hand our secrets to our enemies on a platter.

In voicing his support for a New York trial, Mayor Bloomberg has graciously provided cover for what was surely a unilateral decision of the administration. The mayor correctly asserted that the NYPD can handle the additional security demands. Commissioner Ray Kelly has shaped New York’s police force into the best law enforcement agency in the world, as well as the leading counterterrorism and security organization.

But just because we are ready for those who wish us harm does not mean we should hang a piece of fly paper out for them just blocks from Ground Zero. Drawing terrorists out into the open in Iraq and Afghanistan makes strategic and tactical sense, but not here in the Big Apple. While the NYPD can reduce risk, they cannot eliminate it.

In late 2008, Commissioner Kelly warned a congressional commission: “Everything we know about al-Qaeda tells us they will try to hit us again, possibly next time with a weapon of mass destruction. We must do everything in our power to stop them before it is too late.” Holding this trial in New York is like encouraging them to try again. For the sake of all who lost loved ones on 9/11, and for the safety of our wonderful city, New Yorkers must be vocal advocates of the NIMBY philosophy: Not In My Back Yard!

NIMBY-ism was given public voice just this week at a press conference held by an organization called the 911 Never Forget Coalition. A diverse group of victims, family members, first responders, active and reserve members of the military, veterans, and concerned Americans, they stand resolute against Holder’s decision. At the conference, they announced that they will hold a large rally in New York City on December 9. Who will stand with them?


Amanda Bowman is the former New York director of the Center for Security Policy. She is currently the C.E.O. of the Atlantic Bridge, a policy organization whose mission is to promote the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.

TRAVESTY IN NEW YORK

Thanks to Obama and his puppet, Eric Holder, we are walking down a dangerous path. Never in the history of our country have terrorists been brought in from foreign countries and given our constitutional rights in a court of law. As acts of war, they have all been tried in a military tribunal, and 9-11 is no exception. If anything, it should (and will)be landmark decisions, God help us.

Charles Krauthammer writes a brilliant article in National Review Online:


Travesty in New York
We are giving KSM a farcical show trial.
by Charles Krauthammer, November 20, 2009

For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the “propaganda of the deed.” And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 — not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic.

And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York. Just as the memory fades, 9/11 has been granted a second life — and KSM, a second act: 9/11, The Director’s Cut, narration by KSM.

Sept. 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable — a civilian trial in the media capital of the world — from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.

So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system, in which the rule of law and the fair trial reign.

Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) “do not get convicted,” asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. “Failure is not an option,” replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn’t the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure — acquittal, hung jury — is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place.

Moreover, everyone knows that whatever the outcome of the trial, KSM will never walk free. He will spend the rest of his natural life in U.S. custody. Which makes the proceedings a farcical show trial from the very beginning.

Apart from the fact that any such trial will be a security nightmare and a terror threat to New York — what better propaganda-by-deed than blowing up the entire courtroom, making KSM a martyr and making the judge, jury, and spectators into fresh victims? — it will endanger U.S. security. Civilian courts with broad rights of cross-examination and discovery give terrorists access to crucial information about intelligence sources and methods.

That’s precisely what happened during the civilian New York trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. The prosecution was forced to turn over to the defense a list of 200 unindicted co-conspirators, including the name Osama bin Laden. “Within ten days, a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum,” wrote former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the presiding judge at that trial, “letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered.”

Finally, there’s the moral logic. It’s not as if Holder opposes military commissions on principle. On the same day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, Holder announced he was sending Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, mastermind of the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, to a military tribunal.

By what logic? In his congressional testimony Wednesday, Holder was utterly incoherent in trying to explain. In his November 13 news conference, he seemed to be saying that if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, you get a civilian trial; a military target like the Cole, and you get a military tribunal.

What a perverse moral calculus. Which is the war crime — an attack on defenseless civilians or an attack on a military target such as a warship, an accepted act of war which the U.S. itself has engaged in countless times?

By what possible moral reasoning, then, does KSM, who perpetrates the obvious and egregious war crime, receive the special protections and constitutional niceties of a civilian courtroom, while he who attacked a warship is relegated to a military tribunal?

Moreover, the incentive offered any jihadi is as irresistible as it is perverse: Kill as many civilians as possible on American soil and Holder will give you Miranda rights, a lawyer, a propaganda platform — everything but your own blog.

Alternatively, Holder tried to make the case that he chose a civilian New York trial as a more likely venue for securing a conviction. An absurdity: By the time Obama came to office, KSM was ready to go before a military commission, plead guilty and be executed. It’s Obama who blocked a process that would have yielded the swiftest and most certain justice.

Indeed, the perfect justice. Whenever a jihadist volunteers for martyrdom, we should grant his wish. Instead, this one, the most murderous and unrepentant of all, gets to dance and declaim at the scene of his crime.

Holder himself told the Washington Post that the coming New York trial will be “the trial of the century.” The last such was the trial of O. J. Simpson.


— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2009, The Washington Post Writers Group

A HISTORICALLY BAD DECISION

"We're making history here, Mr. Attorney General." And isn't that what it's all about for them? Especially Obama, who thinks every time he steps up to the podium is a historic moment. But this is far too serious to ignore or accept, as the security of our country is at stake.

President Bush kept America safe for 8 years because he knew what he was doing, sans ego, and had knowledgeable people to support and advise him. But this is a new administration hell bent on blaming and destroying Bush, and, in the process, America.

Heritage Foundation writes further:


A Historically Bad Decision
November 19, 2009

Last Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five other terrorists would be tried in a civilian court in New York City rather than before a military tribunal. Pressing Holder on this decision at yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight hearing of the U.S. Department of Justice, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked: “Can you give me a case in United States history where a (sic) enemy combatant caught on a battlefield was tried in civilian court?”

Holder responded: “I don’t know. I’d have to look at that. I think that, you know, the determination I’ve made…” At which point Graham interjected: “We’re making history here, Mr. Attorney General. I’ll answer it for you. The answer is no.” Holder’s decision does make history. And not in a good way. Edwin Meese III, the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy and Chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation as well as the United States Attorney General between 1985 and 1988 released the following statement yesterday on Holder’s unprecedented decision:

It is clear that foreign terrorists and terrorist groups have committed acts of war against the United States, and that our national security requires that we respond accordingly. This means that President Bush’s prudent actions and the military response which he led should continue as our answer to these attacks.

Congress overwhelmingly reaffirmed their commitment to military commissions in 2006, which have historically been the way that we respond to acts of war. To abandon our two centuries of tradition and to substitute some new civilian procedure as a response to such attacks endangers the security of our country and our national interest.

It was a tragic mistake to decide to abandon the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, which was designed physically and legally to handle these types of cases. It is a further tragic mistake to now bring the detained war combatants into the United States and to employ civilian criminal procedures which were never intended for this type of situation.

The U.S. Constitution protects American citizens and visitors from the moment they are suspected of criminal wrongdoing through a potential trial. These same protections are not, have never, and should not be granted to enemy combatants in war, since it is clear that regardless of the outcome of the trial, these detainees will likely remain in the custody of the United States.

CHANGING THE SUBJECT: WHY O NIXED FT. HOOD PROBE

This is a travesty -- not just 'criminal trials' for acts of war [blocks from the scene of the attacks], but this current administration.

We have a president who says that he opposes a congressional investigation into the bloodbath at Ft. Hood, and yet brings terrorists on American soil for a circus criminal trial. How does he do that with a straight face?

Dick Morris writes:


CHANGING THE SUBJECT: WHY O NIXED FT. HOOD PROBE
by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, November 16, 2009

As he flew to Asia on Saturday, President Obama told the media in Alaska that he opposes a congressional investigation into the Fort Hood massacre, saying that we must "resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into political theater." Yet, even as he was posturing against political theatrics, he had just decided that the prosecution of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would proceed on the greatest of public stages -- New York City.

With the strict evidentiary rules in force in federal civilian courts, it is easy to see how the prosecution of Mohammed could morph into an indictment of the Bush administration's interrogation techniques and waterboarding. As in rape trials, the magnitude of the underlying crime (masterminding the 9/11 attacks) might well be lost as the defense puts the victim (in this case, the government) on trial.

It is not political theater itself to which Obama objects -- but theater that highlights issues that liberals would rather forget. He is quite content to let the Mohammed trial become the theater of the left. Perhaps even eager.

Obama and his handlers know that the key to building favorable ratings is to control the agenda. And the more the national discussion centers on national security and terrorism, the more Republicans gain. So the Fort Hood terror attack comes at an awful time for an administration trying to turn the nation's attention away from the terrorist threat.

As soon as the killing spree was over, Obama hastened to call it "an act of violence" -- obscuring the obvious fact that it was the most serious terror attack on US soil since 9/11. And, as evidence mounts that the FBI was on to Major Nidal Malik Hasan for years, the president is doing his best to stop Congress from finding out why these warnings went unheeded.

Even as Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee confirmed that the government knew of 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and a radical imam in Yemen -- who was urging the killing of American troops -- starting last December, Obama hastened to urge Congress to refrain from investigating why the danger signs were ignored.

The Obama administration has a clear agenda here:

1) Stop people from focusing in how his administration permitted the worst domestic terror attack in eight years.

2) Avoid a national airing of how liberal policies -- restraints on the intelligence community, political correctness in the armed forces -- might have inhibited the military from reining in Hasan.

3) Re-ignite a firestorm on the left and abroad against the aggressive anti-terror policies of the Bush administration.

Making all this particularly important for Obama are his other political needs.

As he likely decides to send more troops to Afghanistan and eyes abandoning the "public option" to secure Senate passage of his health-care plan, Obama has to rebuild his credibility on the left. A public circus that focuses on waterboarding and interrogations could be just what he wants and needs.

Go to DickMorris.com to read all of Dick's columns!
Get Dick's new book CATASTROPHE here.

FORT HOOD, KSM, AND OBAMA'S 9/10 MENTALITY

If we don't recognize a problem for what it is, then we will never be able to fix it. In order to save face, this administration refuses to call a spade a spade.

If they call the bloodbath at Ft. Hood a terrorist attack [which is clearly was], then Obama is a failure at keeping America safe from attack, unlike President Bush. The danger in a pre 9-11 mentality, is it puts our country in great peril. We are at war against terrorism, foreign and domestic -- specifically jihadist terrorism.

Roger Kimball writes an excellent piece in PajamasMedia:


Fort Hood, KSM, and Obama's 9/10 Mentality
Where are the Purple Hearts? Some Truths About Fort Hood
by Roger Kimball, November 14, 2009

Twelve solders and one civilian army employee were massacred by Maj. Nidal Hasan, an army psychiatrist, on November 5 at Ft. Hood, Texas. Maj. Hasan injured another thirty people, some critically, before being shot himself by the local police.

Will the soldiers whom Hasan killed or injured in this latest terrorist assault receive the Purple Heart?

In my view, they should. But whether they do depends on how the Obama administration decides to spin the episode. If it determines that the soldiers were victims of criminal assault, the answer is No: they do not get this most somber military decoration.

But if the Obama administration determines that those soldiers were injured or killed in the line of duty, then they are eligible for the Purple Heart. [UPDATE: the always excellent Diana West beat me to the punch with this insightful column about Ft. Hood and the Purple Heart.]

It’s tricky for Obama. His administration is devoted to transforming the jihadist war against the West into a civilian conflict. Hence the heavy odor of political correctness that has hung about Ft. Hood since November 5 when Maj. Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” and opened fire.

Perhaps the most nauseating PC emission came from General George Casey, the army’s top officer, who told CNN that he was “concerned” that “speculation” about Maj. Hasan’s motivation in mowing down those 40-odd people at Ft. Hood “could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers.”

Is he really?

Care to savor an unadulterated gem of political correctness? You cannot do better than this:

” . . . as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.”

That’s General George Casey again — one for the record books, I’d say. I’m sure that non-Muslim soldiers in the U.S. Army the world over appreciate his sensitivity and will once again rest easy. Is Mohammed polishing his revolver in the bunk opposite? Never mind. This is the modern Army, committed to diversity. Some soldiers fight the enemies of America. These days, we have to have soldiers who regard America as the enemy. Be all you can be.

New Yorkers, too, will be able to rest more easily now that the Obama administration has decided to remove 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terrorist conspirators from the jurisdiction of the military and hand them over to a New York criminal court to be tried. Are you interested in learning how to transform a mass murderer into a totemic hero for America’s enemies the world over? Stayed tuned. President Obama is just about to show you how it is done. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, speaking at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention yesterday, rightly blasted this return to a September 10 mentality that supposes “acts like the first World Trade Center bombing [in 1993], the attacks on our embassies in Africa and other such acts can and should be treated as conventional crimes and tried in conventional courts.” Not only will this disgorge a “cornucopia” of sensitive intelligence information to public scrutiny, but it will also provide other jihadists with a tempting target of opportunity.

In “The Purloined Letter,” Edgar Allan Poe showed that sometimes the best place to conceal something is in plain sight. Somehow, we overlook what we can’t avoid. The case of Maj. Nidal Hasan and his murderous rampage at Ft. Hood reminds us that a similar process is at work in the career of Islam in the West. The truth couldn’t be plainer: Islam is a creed violently at odds with secular liberal society.

How we have struggled to deny this! A few days after 9/11, President Bush found an imam to stand next to him as he told told the world that the word “Islam” means “peace.”

In fact, “Islam” means “submission to the will of Allah.” One thing that Allah wills is the subjugation or murder of the infidel, i.e. non-Muslims. You don’t have to be a student of comparative religion to understand this. All you had to do on September 11, 2001, was look around at the smoldering ruins of what had been the World Trade Center.

The U.S. State Department tells its employees that “jihad” means “inner struggle.” In fact, it means homicidal mania. You don’t need to be a linguist to see this. The families of the forty-odd people Hasan gunned down understood this immediately.

A reporter for The New York Times, grasping for a straw of exoneration, suggested that Maj. Hasan had been suffering from “post-traumatic stress syndrome.” An editorial in The Washington Times wittily observed that “pre-traumatic stress syndrome” would be closer to the truth. Maj. Hasan had never seen combat. When not garnering a medical degree at the expense of the U.S. government, he was busy imbibing al Qaeda’s hideous doctrine of hate from wackos like Anwar al-Awlaki.

Why was Nidal Hasan even allowed in the army? In London a few days ago, I had tea with a friend who is an Arabist. He told me that, had he been the army recruiter who interviewed Hasan, he would have denied him entry to the army. “Nidal,” he explained, means “warrior,” “combatant.” It was a name you didn’t really encounter before the 1960s and the rise of radical Islam. Nidal Hasan’s parents inscribed his ideology on his birth certificate.

I had no idea what “Nidal” meant. Probably you didn’t either. But, 8 years after 9/11, an army recruiter ought to have known it.

There was nothing subtle about Nidal Hasan. His hatred of the infidel, like Falstaff’s dishonesty, is “gross as a mountain, open, palpable.” He paraded it. Colleagues at Walter Reed Hospital commented on it. It raised an eyebrow, but not much of an alarm, at the FBI. (See Andy McCarthy on the FBI’s bumbling treatment of the case.)

It took five days for President Obama to travel to Ft. Hood and say something about the Islamic terrorist outrage that had been perpetrated there. He didn’t call it a terrorist outrage, of course. Why? Two main reasons: 1) Doing so might offend those “mainstream” Muslims General Casey’s diversity program caters to; and 2) it might suggest that the Obama administration isn’t as effective as it should be about protecting America from terrorists.

Instead of telling the truth, President Obama described Maj. Hasan’s attack as an “incomprehensible” act that “no faith justifies.”

In fact, Maj. Hasan’s rampage is perfectly comprehensible because it is explicitly justified, indeed encouraged, by Islam, the faith he embraces.

Until we are willing to face up to that truth, we will not be able to defend ourselves effectively. Nor, finally, will we be able to defend the rights of those pacific people who call themselves Muslims but have abandoned the toxic heart of Islam.

Bottom line: Islam confronts the liberal democracies of the West with a critical existential test. Islam is Janus-faced. It presents itself as a religion, but one with explicit and uncompromising political ambitions. It faces not only the hereafter, but also the here-and-now. The West can strive to make a place for Islam’s inward aspirations. The West, if freedom is to survive and prosper, must also strenuously deny Islam’s political claims.

Islam presents the West with a boundary case, testing the limits of religious freedom. Unlike Muslims, we believe people should be allowed to worship unmolested as they see fit. But in order to protect that commodiousness, the West must be intolerant of doctrines, like Islam, that preach intolerance.

Doctrines that have a religious dimension must not be allowed to draw on the prestige, the privileges, the immunities we accord to religion when they do so in order to deny those privileges and immunities to others. Such movements — Islam is one — should be regarded as what they are: activist political organizations whose aims are destructive of our institutions.

Back when he was capitulating to the dwarfish tyrant that rules North Korea, President Obama said “Words must mean something.” He was right about that. It’s a pity that, here as elsewhere, his actions do not live up to his words. Which is why, were I a betting man, I’d wager there will be no Purple Hearts distributed at Ft. Hood. Looking for the purloined letter? It’s right there in front of you.

(Emphasis added)

OBAMA AND THE 9/11 MURDERERS

We live in interesting times. Here we have a weekend filled with emotion, as we honor the men, women and children murdered by savages, and on the other hand, hundreds of thousands of Patriots gather at the White House in protest of a government's over-reaching hand.

From RedState, here is a comparison of responses to 9-11-2001 by our dear leader and Britain's Tony Blair. It's difficult to conceal one's anger:


Obama and the 9/11 Murderers
Posted by bs, September 10, 2009

Tomorrow is the eight anniversary of the most heinous terrorist attack ever perpetrated on the United States. Thousands of our friends, family and fellow Americans were murdered in cold blood by vicious terrorists who hated America and what we stand for.

On September 19, 2001, a story ran in the Hyde Park Herald containing then-State-Senator Barack Obama’s response to the 9/11 tragedy. In this piece (quoted in this article from the New Yorker, under the heading “The Speech”), Obama expresses empathy for the murderers! Not anger, not disdain, not a word of sympathy for the victims. His concern was for the murderers.

From Obama’s article:

We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

So are we to feel sorry for these people, Mr. President? It’s not like it was a mystery that there were terrorists out there in the world like this back in 2001. We knew they weren’t poor & uneducated, as Obama seems to believe here. Ponder the fact that it is just this kind of leftist “thinking” that is driving the Marxist/fascist policies emanating from the White House today.

Tomorrow, please pray for the families and friends of the victims, and pray for our country, that it not adopt the kind of thinking that Barack Obama expressed in 2001.

(h/t to Michelle Malkin for originally posting on this last September 11)

UPDATE: Contrast Barack Obama’s response with Tony Blair’s:

So what do we do? Don’t overreact some say. We aren’t. We haven’t lashed out. No missiles on the first night just for effect. Don’t kill innocent people. We are not the ones who waged war on the innocent. We seek the guilty. Look for a diplomatic solution. There is no diplomacy with Bin Laden or the Taliban regime. State an ultimatum and get their response. We stated the ultimatum; they haven’t responded. Understand the causes of terror. Yes, we should try, but let there be no moral ambiguity about this: nothing could ever justify the events of 11 September, and it is to turn justice on its head to pretend it could. The action we take will be proportionate; targeted; we will do all we humanly can to avoid civilian casualties.

But understand what we are dealing with. Listen to the calls of those passengers on the planes. Think of the children on them, told they were going to die. Think of the cruelty beyond our comprehension as amongst the screams and the anguish of the innocent, those hijackers drove at full throttle planes laden with fuel into buildings where tens of thousands worked. They have no moral inhibition on the slaughter of the innocent. If they could have murdered not 7,000 but 70,000 does anyone doubt they would have done so and rejoiced in it? There is no compromise possible with such people, no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must. Any action taken will be against the terrorist network of Bin Laden.

That is the response of a leader. Obama’s response was that of a coward.

Yes, I am angry. Again.

GOD BLESS AMERICA, MY HOME SWEET HOME

President Bush spoke to a shocked America and the world before a Joint Session of Congress just days after:

"... America is successful because of the hard work and creativity and enterprise of our people. These were the true strengths of our economy before September 11th, and they are our strengths today."

"... We will not tire, we will not falter and we will not fail."

Let us never forget what this day truly means.

From The Heritage Foundation:

Don’t Let 9/11 Become Just Another Earth Day
September 11, 2009

Three years ago, Norwell High School social studies teacher Julie Fox commemorated 9/11 by asking her students to write journal entries recounting where they were when the planes hit and how they felt at that moment. But now, Fox tells the Boston Globe, too few students remember the day. So Fox spends class time explaining the basics of what happened on 9/11 and why. “It’s almost like teaching the Civil War,” she said.

High School students are not the only ones for whom 9/11 is becoming a distant memory. According to the Washington Post, 70% of Democrats say the war in Afghanistan has not been worth its costs (compared to 70% of Republicans who say the war is still worth fighting). Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Stephen Biddle explains: “Surely a big piece of the declining poll numbers for support for Afghanistan is that the public does not yet see the connection between Afghanistan and al-Qaida today.”

Responding to their leftist base, opposition to the effort in Afghanistan is growing. among liberals in Congress. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the 82-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, said her group is unified in wanting to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters yesterday: “I don’t think there’s a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or the Congress.”

One would think that President Obama would take the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks as an opportunity to educate Americans about the link between the fight in Afghanistan and the still very real threat posed by al-Qaida today. No such luck. Instead, President Obama has chosen to use 9/11 to promote his own domestic policy agenda. In a letter celebrating 9/11 as a “National Day of Service and Rememberance” President Obama writes:

We are building a new foundation for growth and prosperity, but we cannot succeed without your help. We can rebuild out schools, but we need mentors and tutors to guide our students. We can modernize our health system, but we need volunteers to care for the sick and assist others in leading healthier lives. We can invest in clean energy, but we need people to maintain energy efficiency in their homes and help create a green economy.

School construction? Health care reform? Green jobs? These are all important areas of public policy debate, but what do they have to do with keeping us safe from those who wish to inflict a second 9/11 on the American people? Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the American Airlines jet that crashed into the Pentagon told the Associated Press: “When I first heard about it, I was concerned. I fear, I greatly fear, at some point we’ll transition to turning it into Earth Day where we go and plant trees and the remembrance part will become smaller and smaller and smaller.”

Thanks to President Obama’s http://www.serve.gov/, that is exactly what is happening. In Oklahoma students will pull weeds, plant flowers, paint benches, and plant a tree. In Minnesota, 100 volunteers will assemble Energy Efficiency Outreach Bags. And in South Carolina AmeriCorps members will serve in a variety of projects, including garden beautification, food and clothing collections, and working with homeless and hungry people.

True volunteerism strengthens our civil society. But federal government involvement undermines, not strengthens, true public service. Instead of coordinating garden beautifications, the federal governemnt should honor the memory of the tragedy of 9/11 by focusing on policies that will make sure it never happens again.

OBAMA'S PLAN TO DESECRATE 9/11

Today we remember and honor the men and women we lost this day, September 11, 2001. God bless them.

Ironically, Obama found the time to travel to New York City to speak at Walter Cronkite's funeral, but not today. Twisting 9/11 into a national day of service is an outrage. It's an insult and insensitive. We're rekindling our spirit of (community) service? Obama is completely disconnected, and to make a point:

"..... It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth." Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address Nov-1863

From the great American Spectator: (h/t Rush Limbaugh)

Obama's Plan to Desecrate 9/11
by Matthew Vadum, August 24, 2009

The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry.

This effort to reshape the American psyche has nothing to do with healing the nation and everything to do with easing the nation along in the ongoing radical transformation of America that President Obama promised during last year's election campaign. The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, but it's not likely many lawmakers thought this meant that day was going to be turned into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing.

The administration's plans were outlined in an Aug. 11 White House-sponsored teleconference call run by Obama ally Lennox Yearwood, president of the Hip Hop Caucus, and Liv Havstad, the group's senior vice president of strategic partnerships and programs.

Yearwood, who uses the honorific "Reverend" before his name, has been in the news in recent years, usually for getting arrested. After Democrats took back Congress, the rowdy activist was handcuffed outside a congressional hearing in September 2007 when Gen. David Petraeus was to testify. Yearwood told the "Democracy Now" radio program that he wanted to attend the hearing to hear Petraeus give his report. "I knew that when officers lie, soldiers die," he said.

On the Aug. 11 call, Yearwood and other leaders kept saying repeatedly that they wanted 9/11 to be used for something "positive," "forward-leaning," and "productive," said a source with knowledge of the teleconference.

The plan is to turn a "day of fear" that helps Republicans into a day of activism called the National Day of Service that helps the left. In other words, nihilistic liberals are planning to drain 9/11 of all meaning.

"They think it needs to be taken back from the right," said the source. "They're taking that day and they're breaking it because it gives Republicans an advantage. To them, that day is a fearful day."

A coalition including the unsavory left-wing pressure group Color of Change and about 60 far-left, environmentalist, labor, and corporate shakedown groups participated in the call. Groups on the call included: ACORN, AFL-CIO, Apollo Alliance, Community Action Partnership, Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, 80 Million Strong for Young American Jobs, Friends of the Earth, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Mobilize.org, National Black Police Association, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, National Council of Negro Women, National Wildlife Federation, RainbowPUSH Coalition, Urban League, and Young Democrats of America.

Color of Change is the extremist racial grievance group that isn't happy that TV's Glenn Beck did several news packages on Van Jones, the self-described "communist" and "rowdy black nationalist" who became the president's green jobs czar after jumping on the environmentalist bandwagon. The White House may be behind a push to destroy Beck by convincing advertisers to stop buying time on his show. Jones was also on the board of the Apollo Alliance, a hard-left environmentalist group that is now running large chunks of the Obama administration. The group has acknowledged that it dictated parts of the February stimulus bill to Congress.

With the help of the Obama administration, the coalition is launching a public relations campaign under the radar of the mainstream media -- which remains almost uniformly terrified of criticizing the nation's first black president -- to try to change 9/11 from a day of reflection and remembrance to a day of activism, food banks, and community gardens.

"The organizing term is to 'go dark.' You don't tell the press, don't tell people you think will tell the press," said the source.

Of course, the annual commemoration of the 2001 terrorist attacks belongs to the entire nation, but President Obama and the activist left don't see it that way. They view the nationwide remembrance of the murder of 3,000 Americans by Islamic totalitarians as an obstacle to winning over the hearts and minds of the American people.

"When you criticize them, they are prepared to say, 'Did you want 9/11 to be another day of selling mattresses, like Presidents Day?" the source said. "They are truly trying to change the American mindset."

They view Sept. 11 as a "Republican" day because it focuses the public on supposedly "Republican" issues like patriotism, national security, and terrorism. According to liberals, 9/11 was long ago hijacked by Republicans and their enablers and unfairly used to bludgeon helpless Democrats at election time.

MSNBC's foremost left-wing bloviator, Keith Olbermann, summed up this ugly perspective the week after the Republican Party convention last year:

But 9/11 has become a brand name. A Republican campaign slogan. Propaganda of the lowest form. 9/11 has become 9/11 with a trademark logo. "9/11 TM" has sustained a president who long ago should have been dismissed, or impeached. It
has kept him and his gang of financial and constitutional crooks in office without -- literally -- any visible means of support. "9/11 TM" has made possible the greatest sleight-of-hand in our nation's history.

On Aug. 4, the White House offered a glimpse into its plans to desecrate 9/11 for political advantage. Jones appeared in a largely ignored 33-minute video posted on the official blog of the White House to discuss the administration's plan to flush 9/11 down the memory hole just as it has tried to do by rechristening the Global War on Terror the "Overseas Contingency Operations."

Of this National Day of Service, Jones says little except that it will be a great opportunity "for people to connect, to find other people in your peer group who are also passionate about repowering America but also greening up America and cleaning up America."

On the same day, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, and Department of Energy Under Secretary Kristina Johnson and activists held a low-key press conference. At it, Yearwood said the National Day of Service will be "the first milestone" of a larger effort called Green the Block that is attempting to convince Americans that the utopian fantasy of a so-called green economy is possible without turning the U.S. into a Third World country.

"From policy creation to community implementation, the Green the Block campaign wants to see access and opportunity created for all Americans, to build prosperity and a healthier planet for future generations," Yearwood said.

At no time does anyone explain why this National Day of Service has to be held -- of all the 365 days in a year -- on Sept. 11.

OBAMA'S TEAM CROSSES THE RHETORICAL LINE

Has Obama left campaign mode yet? Has he been presidential? During the Reagan administration, President Reagan made people proud to be an American and live in this great country. His love of country was profound, and his dedication to protect our Constitution undaunted.

Americans fearful of losing these precious freedoms have taken to their townhall meetings with hand-made signs to voice their concerns. Obama's counter-attack is a despicable phone campaign for 9-11-2009 on his "Organizing for America" website, which has subsequently been pulled. Does he know what he's doing?

The Heritage Foundation reports:


Obama’s Team Crosses the Rhetorical Line
September 1, 2009

(Update: The website cited below has been suspended by barackobama.com. The screenshot to the right is the original page, but the embedded links will no longer work. Click here or here for a full-screen view.)

Many Americans took off work and sacrificed family time this past August to attend congressional town halls, where they voiced opposition to a government-run overhaul of their personal health care choices. They hand painted signs, grabbed their children and drove to their local church or school gymnasium for valuable lessons in community organizing and democracy. While they lived the Rockwellian version of American discourse, they were called names, labeled as ‘too organized’ or “un-American”, and likened to mobs, Nazis and Fascists. And now President Obama’s team has designated September 11 as the day to liken conservatives to Al Qaeda terrorists.

Today, President Obama’s campaign organization “Organizing for America” sent out a notice to its “grassroots” supporters. It asked them to wage a coordinated phone campaign for health care by calling their U.S. Senators on September 11 – also known as Patriot Day in honor of the thousands of Americans killed by Al Qaeda terrorists eight years ago. It goes on: “All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.” Please read that again.

Typically when this type of outrageousness is unleashed on the American public, the appropriate response is to recall the webpage and explain the gray area, with phrases such as ‘that was taken out of context’ or ‘we didn’t mean that conservatives were actually terrorists’ or ‘that was written by a junior staffer who has been admonished’. But that should not be sufficient this time. There are several lessons America must learn from this:

Bipartisanship: Rather than rally our nation, which is certainly more divided than ever, they seek to make those divisions even more distinctive this September 11. The President often talks about reaching across the aisle, working with people of differing viewpoints, but that rhetoric is not matched by this reality.

Zealots: This type of irresponsible rhetoric can make dissent against the President seem dangerous. Down the road, the President could paint his detractors as nothing more than right-wing zealots bent on destroying his vision for the nation. Remember, these ‘zealots’ are not smuggling weapons, they’re smuggling poster board and markers. They’re not flying planes into buildings; they’re flying to see their parents for Thanksgiving.

Free Press: How does it help our nation to rally against a free press? If Fox News doesn’t report the story as the White House sees it, does that make them a “propaganda network” as it says on today’s release? Who are the “treacherous leaders” that Fox News is reporting to by the way? These questions need answering.

Memorial: September 11 should be a day to grieve and remember, not a day to lobby for government-run healthcare. It certainly should not be a day to demonize fellow Americans. America’s enemies are violent extremists, bent on bring this nation to its knees, not soccer moms, dads and senior citizens who may disagree with one’s political or policy views.

Results: Will a single American become more enamored with the President’s health care plan, if they are called a terrorist? Will the country become more unified? This is not a strategy that will build consensus, rather it will end health care reform. All Americans want reform; they differ on the details. No reform will be possible in this toxic political environment.

President Obama has a way of deflecting the bad behavior of his subordinates. It is certainly true that he does not get up every morning and write all of his own press releases, and refresh his own website. But he is responsible and accountable for its content. It is time for the President to stop campaigning. He should eliminate his “Organizing for America” website immediately. He needs to stop embracing the rising sun seal of Obama/Biden ‘08 and instead embrace the great Presidential seal of the White House 2009.

On September 11, 2008 then-Presidential candidate Barack Obama said: “Americans across our great country came together to stand with the families of the victims, to donate blood, to give to charity, and to say a prayer for our country. Let us renew that.”

Let us renew that indeed. We should never degrade that day’s events to call those who oppose a policy “terrorists.” Mr. President, this September 11; remember the heroes, remember the victims, remember the families who wept that evening and pray for America’s continued resolve and wisdom, because together we are stronger. Divided we fall.

(Update #2: Several readers have asked us whether this posting on barackobama.com was “user-generated” rather than a staff posting. From what we can tell, this may have been the case. Nevertheless, members of ‘Organizing for America’ in Illinois, North Carolina, and possibly other states were invited to this event without filter. Anything under the ‘Organizing for America’ banner that is distributed en masse is accountable to those who run the President’s perpetual campaign.

Which is the problem with a perpetual campaign. When you have campaign organizers attempting to assist the White House message, you end up in this situation. If one American received one email that led them to believe that the President shared these views, that is one too many.

This was not an ill-advised comment on a blog, but rather an organizing activity that used hateful language to describe the opposition. The President and his political advisors should immediately denounce this language and continue to remove it from their website. And in the long run, they should discontinue the ‘Organizing for America’ website entirely to remove any suspicion that the President shares the views of its participants. There is a time for campaigning, and a time for leading. Now is the time for the President to lead.)

THE GET-CHENEY SQUAD

It is unconscionable that the CIA is under attack while we are in the midst of 2 wars. It is unconscionable the CIA is under attack for doing their job in keeping us safe after the devastating terrorists attack on American soil nearly 8 years ago. Has it been so long ago that we have forgotten our fear, and sense of urgency to prevent future attacks?

Pat Buchanan writes:


The Get-Cheney Squad
by Patrick J. Buchanan, August 28, 2009

"Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."

George Orwell's truth comes to mind as one reads that Eric Holder has named a special prosecutor to go after the "rough men" who, to keep us sleeping peacefully at night, went too far in frightening Khalid Sheik Muhammad, the engineer of the September massacres.

Yet, it seems now indisputable that those CIA interrogators, with their rough methods, got vital intelligence that saved American lives, as Dick Cheney has consistently contended.


According to The Washington Times, which reviewed the newly declassified CIA documents, those interrogators "produced life-saving intelligence that disrupted numerous terrorist plots."

They elicited the names of al-Qaida agents who planned anthrax attacks on Westerners and a massive bombing of Camp Lemonier, the U.S. base in East Africa. They got the names of 70 recruits al-Qaida deemed "suitable for Western attacks" and of the men who made the bomb used on the U.S. consulate in Karachi.

Iyman Faris, an al-Qaeda sleeper agent and truck driver in Ohio, is serving 20 years because of information the CIA got from KSM and associates. Other operations aborted include al-Qaida "plots to fly airliners into buildings on the West Coast, setting off bombs in U.S. cities and planning to employ a network of Pakistanis to target gas stations, railroad tracks and the Brooklyn Bridge."

What were the "inhumane" techniques CIA interrogators used to uncover these plans for the mass murder of Americans?

"Interrogators lifted one detainee off the floor by his arms, while they were bound behind his back with a belt," reports The Washington Post. "Another interrogator used a stiff brush to clean a detainee, scrubbing so roughly that his legs were raw with abrasions. Another squeezed a detainee's neck at his carotid artery until he began to pass out."

The CIA, we are told, used mock executions to frighten captives and threatened to kill KSM's children and rape his mother. Power drills were brandished in interrogation rooms.

Were any children killed? No. Was anyone's mother raped? No. Was the power drill used? No.

Was anyone executed in front of a witness to make him talk? No. It was faked, as Sean Connery faked it in "The Untouchables" to get an underling to blab to Eliot Ness, aka Kevin Costner, about how he could take down Al Capone's mob.

As for threatening to kill the children of our enemies, we did not do that in "The Good War." Instead, what we did was kill them in the thousands every night in air raids over Germany and Japan.

In the Tokyo firestorm of February 1945, the Dresden raid in March, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, we killed grandparents, mothers, fathers, wives, sisters, daughters and sons of the enemy in the scores of thousands on each of those days.

Can it be that the same United States that honored Col. Paul Tibbets and put his Enola Gay, which dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, on display in its Air and Space Museum is going to prosecute a CIA agent for faking an execution and threatening, but never intending, to kill the children of Khalid Sheik Muhammad?

Why is Barack Obama allowing these prosecutions to proceed?

In 2004, career lawyers at Justice looked over the same reports and concluded that prosecutions would not serve the national interest. Obama has himself said he wants to move on.
Now, he and Holder may not like what was done back then, but who does? And where is the criminal intent? These agents are not sadists. They were trying to get intel to abort plots and apprehend terrorists to prevent them from killing us. And they succeeded. Not a single terrorist attack on the United States in eight years.

Do we the people, some of whom may be alive because of what those CIA men did, want them disgraced, prosecuted and punished for not going strictly by the book in protecting us from terrorists?

In its lead editorial Tuesday, "Following the Torture Trail," The Washington Post declaims, "The real culprits in this sordid story are the higher-ups, starting with former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Richard Cheney who led America down the degraded path of state-sponsored torture."

But why is Obama yielding to the clamor of a left that will not be satiated until Cheney and Bush are indicted as Class A war criminals? Is that in the national interest? Is it in Obama's interest to tear his country apart to expose and punish these CIA agents?

In the 1960s, Robert Kennedy and the boys at Justice set up a "Get Hoffa Squad" to take down Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. It was a vendetta that succeeded.

This vendetta will not. For, on the issue of national security, as Barack will painfully discover, he is not more trusted than Dick Cheney or the rough men at the CIA who did the harsh interrogations of terrorists, to keep us sleeping peacefully at night.

AMERICA-HATING OBAMA GOES AFTER CIA

As Obama goes back on his word to not prosecute the brave Americans who kept this country safe, another veil is removed. His attempts to erase the meaning of the 9-11 terrorists attack by re-naming it a National Day of Service is also very telling.

Atlas Shrugs' Pamela Geller reports in Newsmax:


AMERICA-HATING OBAMA GOES AFTER CIA
By Pamela Geller, August 26, 2009

Barack Hussein Obma lied to us.

The morally bankrupt Obama administration is yet again going after those who put protecting Americans first. “After months of consideration,” Fox News reported Monday, “Attorney General Eric Holder plans to appoint a special prosecutor to examine allegations that terror suspects were abused at the hands of their CIA interrogators.”

This is another vile chapter in the still-young Obama presidency. Obama said he would not prosecute the great Americans who kept the country safe during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Those heroic Americans kept this country so safe, in fact, that we felt free to elect a post-American, pro-jihad president.

Obama won’t let this go. Uighurs in Bermuda, CIA agents on the rack.

The hypocrisy of this administration is breathtaking, but the implications of such action are very revealing.

The bottom line is that if one only has limited energies to devote to a wide range of enormous problems, why would anyone work to make American defense efforts the enemy? Jihad is the enemy. What was done was all done in defense of this dear country. Saner men would have lined up the enemy in front of a firing squad.

Obama is angry about the treatment of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks, while he is setting up our boys and girls in Afghanistan. Month after month, we are experiencing the highest number ever of deaths over there because, in Obama’s words, “victory is not the goal.”

Meanwhile, Obama has designated Sept. 11 a “National Day of Service.” Matthew Vadum reported in The American Spectator: “The Obama White House is behind a cynical, coldly calculated political effort to erase the meaning of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks from the American psyche and convert Sept. 11 into a day of leftist celebration and statist idolatry. . . .The president signed into law a measure in April that designated Sept. 11 as a National Day of Service, but it’s not likely many lawmakers thought this meant that day was going to be turned into a celebration of ethanol, carbon emission controls, and radical community organizing.”

Also on Sept. 11, Obama plans to proclaim the creation of his mandatory “civilian community service corps” — an organization that looks ominous at best: why do we need a stateside army? And is it even constitutional to have one — if anyone even cares about the Constitution anymore?

Sept. 11, what should be a somber day of mourning and reflection (on how the hell we got here), will be the day when Obama — in a celebratory mode — makes his big announcement. The whole thing is depraved.

One has to ask: why did this man run for president? The knee jerk reaction to such a question is that a man (or woman) runs for president because he loves America. It is becoming increasingly clear that Obama ran for president because he hates America and wants very much to indict it.

“There is also no question,” Obama said, “that Guantanamo set back the moral authority that is America’s strongest currency in the world.” I disagree. America going on a witch hunt and prosecuting those that kept this country safe sets back our moral authority. America turning her back on the jihad against women, Christian, Jews, and non-believers has set back America’s moral authority. America electing a radical for a president has set back America’s moral authority.

America electing an America-hater for president vanquished our moral authority.

Want proof? You can find it in the release of Islamic terrorist Abdel Basset al-Megrahi. Evil is unleashed in a world where good has decided to sit out the Islam’s war on the West. Remember, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was so intimidated by President George W. Bush, he voluntarily turned over his WMD. I had my issues with Bush when he lost his mojo and caved to the left in his second term, but one thing is for certain: Abdel Basset al-Megrahi would never have been released with a patriot in the White House. Abdel Basset al-Megrahi would never have been released on the first day of Ramadan without a pro-jihad president in the White House. The chaos from the anti-American presidency has not even begun.

Fasten your seat belts.

The man will never stop punishing America for electing him. We will pay with everything good and decent.

Obama is punishing America.


Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs Web site and former associate publisher of the New York Observer. Her Op-Eds have appeared in the Washington Times, Newsmax, Human Events, WorldNetDaily, the American Thinker, Israel National News, and other publications.